Coffee Table Construction
The coffee table with the forged steel base in my “Living Room” section was a particularly fun project to build. It was for one of my very favorite clients, so that made it all the more rewarding.
Here is a group of photos from it’s construction.
First the sawn veneer sections go into a jig to cut their taper on the table saw. The Eucalyptus is very tricky to work with so you have to use a very slow and steady feed and a very fine toothed blade.
The next steps are to carefully trim and fit the wedge shaped sections together to form the radial.
The top is made in 2 halves then joined together.
Next it goes into the vacuum veneer press. Cheryl is giving me a hand here.
Then the endless task of scraping and sanding gets underway. The Eucalyptus is incredibly tough and dulls abrasives in no time. I probably went through 10 discs of each grit (4 different grits) to get it ready for finish
Beginning to put on the finish
Finish coats going on with sanding between coats. I use a Gel Polyurethane finish for a “close to the wood” look while still giving good resistance to everyday use
Top done and installed in the forged steel base. I have yet to install the lower shelf in this photo. The shelf was made of solid planks rather than veneer.
